Efficient single particle detection with a superconducting nanowire

Constriction-limited detection efficiency of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors

We investigate the source of large variations in the observed detection efficiencies of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors between many nominally identical devices. Through both electrical and optical measurements, we infer that these variations arise from “constrictions:” highly localized regions of the nanowires where the effective cross-sectional area for superconducting curren...

Design of a polarization-insensitive superconducting nanowire single photon detector with high detection efficiency

Superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs) deliver superior performance over their competitors in the near-infrared regime. However, these detectors have an intrinsic polarization dependence on the incident wave because of their one-dimensional meander structure. In this paper, we propose an approach to eliminate the polarization sensitivity of SNSPDs by using near-field optics t...

Niobium Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors

We investigate the performance of superconducting nanowire photon detectors fabricated from ultra-thin Nb. A direct comparison is made between these detectors and similar nanowire detectors fabricated from NbN. We find that Nb detectors are significantly more susceptible than NbN to thermal instability (latching) at high bias. We show that the devices can be stabilized by reducing the input res...

Superconducting-nanowire single-photon-detector linear array

Multi-element superconducting nanowire single photon detectors

Single-photon-detector arrays can provide unparalleled performance and detailed information in applications that require precise timing and single photon sensitivity. Such arrays have been demonstrated using a number of single-photon-detector technologies, but the high performance of superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs) and the unavoidable overhead of cryogenic cooling make...